1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to paintball loaders, and more particularly, to a spring-loaded feed mechanism feeding paintballs into a paintball gun.
2. Description of Related Art
Games utilizing paintball guns have increased in popularity over the past few years. Players of these games normally shoot paintballs at each other through paintball guns. The paintballs are gelatin-covered spherical capsules filled with paint. During play of the game, the players on each team advance toward each other. A player is eliminated from the game when the player is hit by a paintball fired from an opposing player's gun. When the paintball hits a player, a “splat” of paint is left on the player.
Normally an existing paintball loader includes a housing which is placed on an upper portion of a paintball gun. The housing is shaped to hold a large quantity of paintballs. At the bottom of the housing is an outlet tube through which the paintballs drop by the force of gravity. The outlet tube leads to an inlet tube located on the upper portion of the gun.
During the operation of existing paintball loaders, paintballs sequentially drop by gravity through the outlet tube into the inlet tube of the gun. The inlet tube directs each paintball into the firing chamber of the gun, where the paintball is propelled outwardly from the gun by compressed air.
The paintball gun and accessories have increased in performance and complexity over the years. Players demand high rates of fire of paintballs from the paintball guns with little or no jamming. However, existing paintball guns are limited in how fast they can accelerate to a rapid firing rate by the performance of the motor driving the paintball loader. In addition, if a loader is feeding paintballs at a high rate of balls per second, when the paintball gun discontinues firing, the loader rate of feeding paintballs must be immediately stopped, primarily through a braking mechanism to instantly stop the rotation of the loader. But such abrupt changes in the loader's rotation rate oftentimes results in paintball jams, as well as subjecting the paintball loader to undesirable forces. A paintball loader is needed which efficiently converts the mechanical energy present at a high feed rate into potential energy for use by the loader during rapid startups. A paintball loader is specifically needed which utilizing a spring-loaded feed mechanism within the paintball loader to increase the performance of the loader.
Co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/689,573 ('573) describes a paintball feed system providing enhanced performance over existing paintball feed systems. Additionally, '573 discloses a paintball loader which reliably and forcibly delivers paintballs to a paintball gun at a rapid, selectable rate, while actively preventing paintball jams. The paintball loader utilizes a drive cone to actively feed the paintballs to the paintball gun. However, when paintballs are no longer required to be fed to the paintball gun, the drive cone must be immediately stopped through the use of a braking mechanism. The braking mechanism rapidly slows the rotation of the drive cone, which subjects the drive cone to undesirable forces. These forces cause wear and tear on the paintball loader. Additionally, when an operator wishes to immediately fire paintballs at a fast rate, the drive cone must accelerate from a stationary position to a high rotation speed. Obviously, the time necessary to accelerate to a high rotational rate is limited by the torque provided by the motor driving the drive cone. Over-driving of a feed mechanism may also introduce undesirable forces on the paintballs located within the loader, resulting in paintball breakage or jams.
It would be a distinct advantage to have an apparatus which increases the performance of the paintball loader by decreasing the acceleration time necessary to rotate the drive cone at a high rate, while deceasing the undesirable forces on the loader when stopping the rotation of the drive cone. It would also be advantageous to have a mechanism which can be used in any paintball loader, enabling the simple modification of the feed mechanism used by the paintball loader. It is an object of the present invention to provide such an apparatus.